Death & Fairy Tales in The Bone Houses: A Book Review
Trigger Warning : This book has graphic descriptions of human and animal anatomy after death and since I am including passages from the book, this blog post may also include anatomically descriptive content. The Bones Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones is about a zombie apocalypse with people being attacked and killed by unthinking monsters that have been dubbed "bones houses" (as opposed to skeletons). But it has other layers that give a respite from the death. We briefly meet Aderyn's family and the villagers of the Welsh town of Colbren. We see Ryn and Ellis's relationship develop at a good pace in both the hectic and quiet moments. The writing and the atmosphere are simple with adequate detail to keep the reader interested while providing a fairy tale essence and a touch of Gothic poetry. The brother tugged at her arm, but she shook him off. "You can't." he said. "We aren't allowed." The girl ignored him. The forest was beautiful—lush wit...